


Trip Up

by gdragondance (xxxibgdrgndnc)



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:39:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9395999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxxibgdrgndnc/pseuds/gdragondance
Summary: trip up (verb): 1. make an error 2. cause to stumbleTop thinks Daesung is upset because he trashed Daesung’s bedroom while the younger was away. Daesung pretends that’s all that’s bothering him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from [tumblr](http://gdragondance.tumblr.com/post/132843985450/trip-up-todae-2400-words-trip-up-verb-1), with minor edits in word choice because I can't just let something live. Original post date Nov. 8th 2015.
> 
> Dubious consent warning is for acting under the influence of alcohol. Take a wild guess who that could be.

Top wakes up alone and fully clothed, in Daesung’s bed, in an empty dorm, at 3 in the afternoon.

He sits on the edge of the bed, staring at his feet. He’s only wearing one shoe. He spends ten minutes trying to remember why.

He gives up, rises, and shuffles across the room, not even bothering to avoid stepping on the dirty clothes he allowed to pile up over the last month and a half.

He makes it to the shower and gives up on standing within thirty seconds of the water hitting his back.

He sits on the floor of the shower and pours too much shampoo in his hand. He doesn’t have the energy to scrub the grime off of his scalp, barely doing any more than running his fingers through his hair.

He bows his head to let the steady stream of water do the rest of the work and drags himself to a stand when he starts to doze off and adjusts the temperature from hot to cold in an effort to become slightly more alert, but when he gets out a minute later his head is still too foggy to wonder why the towel he grabs is already damp.

He spends the rest of the day digging the empty wine bottles out from under Daesung’s bed and washing the sheets and febrezing the hell out of the room while drinking the 12-pack of gatorade Youngbae thought he’d hidden well enough.

**  
***  
**

After the unpleasantness of flying out a day earlier than anticipated to avoid bad weather, Daesung had been looking forward to staying in the dorm all day without worrying about having anywhere to be. He hadn’t even planned on leaving his bed.

He scrapped that idea six seconds after he woke up, shoving Top’s deadweight off of him and accidentally kicking an empty bottle of something from 2004 as he scrambled out of his room and into the shower.

(Those first five seconds were spent uncurling his fingers from Top’s hair while he tried not to laugh at Top’s breath tickling his throat.)

Daesung curses and clenches his fingers in his shampoo-lathered hair.

He’d been in such a rush to get to the bathroom he’d neglected to bring anything with him, so he’s wearing nothing but a towel around his waist when he ventures back into his bedroom to grab his suitcase and carry-on, banging them against the door on his way out. He winces and his eyes shoot to Top’s sleeping form. He doesn’t so much as twitch.

Daesung lugs his bags into Top’s room to get ready for the day.

He pulls a thin sweater over his head and studies himself in Top’s mirror – specifically, how the collar lays against the hickey on his neck.

He moves his arms and shoulders experimentally, observing how the neckline shifts with his movements before giving up and digging out a light jacket with a collar from his suitcase.

Daesung grabs the used towel off the floor and deposits it on the rack in the bathroom before leaving the dorm, wondering how long he can stay away.

**  
***  
**

Top doesn’t go in his own bedroom until the early evening.

Daesung’s giant suitcase and carry-on are sitting open on his bed.

Top is… confused.

He checks his phone, the memo he’d written – DAESUNG HOME TONIGHT – and double checks the date. It matches, but he could’ve sworn it would be another two hours before he arrived. Did Top get the flight wrong? Did Daesung's flight arrive in the morning instead of the evening? 

It must have.

But how did he miss him? The longest Top had been out of the dorm was 5 minutes, if that, when he’d gone downstairs to put the bedding in the dryer, and again to bring it back to the dorm. There’s no way Daesung could’ve come and gone that fast.

The only other option is–

Daesung arrived while Top was still asleep.

 _Passed out,_ he corrects himself, groaning. Passed out in Daesung’s bed with a month and a half’s worth of dirty laundry and empty wine bottles covering the floor because he doesn’t know how to deal with this anymore.

Daesung’s never brought it up before, the clues Top leaves in his room when Daesung returns after a night or two away. He’s tried everything from sweatshirts to packs of cigarettes, hoping for an acknowledgment, a joke, a single word just to let them open up a dialogue.

_“Quit leaving your stuff in my room.”_

_“But I like your room.”_

_“What’s wrong with your room?”_

_“It’s not yours.”_

He can only dream of the conversation going that smoothly.

The sweatshirt, he found in his closet the next day. The cigarettes, he found in the garbage, snapped in half.

He’s just about to hit send on a text – _wtf are you home already????_ – when he hears the front door open.

**  
***  
**

Daesung is about to remove his jacket when Top rounds the corner, and he pulls it closer instead.

“I was just about to text you!” Top flashes his phone. “What gives? When did you get home?”

He sounds uneasy, but the look on his face makes it clear he doesn’t remember. 

Daesung didn’t think he would. Counting on it, actually.

“This morning,” he lies, and tries a smile.

It doesn’t work.

**  
***  
**

Daesung definitely saw his bedroom, then.

Top never wanted to be the one to bring it up, “it” being whatever this fucked up thing he does is, but this time it was more than just a forgotten sweatshirt or a lighter, and an apology is the least he owes him.

“Sorry,” Top blurts out. “About your room. It’s clean now.”

Daesung fiddles with the collar on his jacket. “It’s okay, hyung.” Of course it’s okay. It would take nothing short of a bloody corpse for Daesung to admit that it wasn’t okay. “I just slept in your room. I hope that’s… okay.”

“Wha– yeah, Dae, of course it’s fine.”

Daesung doesn’t say anything more about it. He starts walking but Top catches him with a one-armed hug, determined to add it to his apology. “It’s good to–” Something flashes through his mind, something faint, something that has to do with Daesung’s close proximity, but it passes in a blink and Top attributes it to how long he’s gone without seeing him. “–have you home,” he finishes, without too much of a hiccup.

“Glad to be back,” Daesung replies, but it sounds like the opposite.

**  
***  
**

Daesung’s room is clean.

Very clean.

No stale cigarette smoke, stray clothes, or empty wine bottles. Fresh sheets and pillowcases and a made bed. Even an open window.

Daesung wishes the same could be done to the room in his memory.

He checks his watch. The gym is still open for another hour.

**  
***  
**

Top figures he’ll be up half the night after sleeping in so late, so he’s making himself a late dinner when Daesung comes home for the second time, duffel bag over his shoulder, hair damp with sweat.

“Want me to fix some for you, too?” he says, chopping vegetables. Youngbae would be proud.

Daesung cranes his neck to see what Top is making.

Top nearly slices off the tips of his fingers because Daesung has a hickey.

They both realize he’s staring and Daesung pulls his shirt collar while Top drops his eyes back to the knife in his hand and starts cutting the carrots in much more irregular sizes. 

A girlfriend would explain why Daesung had been so sullen since getting back. 

It’s about damn time, to be honest. Daesung’s always been popular with girls, even though he has trouble accepting that sometimes. 

He’s popular with boys, too.

Top… isn’t so thrilled by that. He doesn’t have a problem with Daesung liking men (if he likes men; Daesung is good at keeping his private life _private_ , even from the rest of the members), he has a problem with Daesung liking men who aren’t _him_. 

He spent Daesung’s entire run in Cats fighting nausea comparable to seasickness.

“Looks like someone in Japan doesn’t want you to forget them that quickly,” Top jokes, or tries to joke, because he sounds as bitter as he feels.

Daesung stops pulling at his shirt and just curls his fingers against the mark instead. “It’s… not quite like that, hyung.”

“Aw, come on.” Top’s trying, he’s really, really trying to sound upbeat and keep himself under control. “What’s her name?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried, just tell me.” He’s finished with the carrots but his eyes are still downcast and he’s forcing a smile at the fucking cutting board. He’s still holding a knife; he probably looks murderous.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Top looks up at the sound of the duffel bag smacking the ground, and Daesung is halfway to his room.

The jealousy passes and now it’s just worry, because Daesung isn’t being shy or playful about this, something serious is going on. He lets the knife clatter against the counter and takes half a dozen strides after him at a half-jog pace.

“Daesung–”

Daesung is just about to shut the door when Top trips over the bunched up rug in the hall.

He stumbles forward but manages to catch himself, hand thudding against the door frame, the dull sound echoing in his ears as he goes very, very still.

His grip tightens on the wood as he remembers.

**  
***  
**

Daesung sees memories of the night before ignite like a flare behind Top’s eyes, and if Daesung had a pitcher of cold water he’d dump it over his head to put it out because the fallout is manageable if just one of them remembers, but both of them–

“Daesung.”

Top isn’t looking at him. His gaze is locked on some undetermined point over Daesung’s shoulder. He’s holding onto the door frame like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

When Top speaks again, his tone is low and even. “Did you get back last night while I was out?”

**  
***  
**

Coming home.

Toeing off one shoe before giving up on the other and meandering through the common area and down the hall.

Tripping over _that damned rug_ and catching himself against the frame of the door before pushing into the dark room.

Dropping on the bed and the delirious, drunken surprise and elation to find someone already in it.

If Top gripped the door frame any harder it would splinter in his hands.

He registers an affirmative nod from Daesung, but he’s too caught up remembering the way Daesung’s lips parted for his tongue and the quiet moans and soft sighs Daesung made when Top kissed his neck and left the mark he’s slowly reaching out to touch, moving aside Daesung’s t-shirt and brushing his fingertips across the small bruise.

“Was that–” He doesn’t know why he’s having so much trouble vocalizing what he already knows. “Was that me?”

**  
***  
**

Daesung’s reliving the night, Top’s mouth on his neck, the little noises he let himself make, gripping Top’s hair in one hand and the sheet in the other to keep himself from grabbing his hips to pull him down tighter against him because, as the coherent (albeit sleepy) one, it was Daesung’s responsibility to keep them both in line.

 _A drunken makeout,_ Daesung had decided. _Just a sloppy, drunken makeout is as far as this is going._

It hadn’t lasted that long– five, ten minutes, if that. Short enough to keep it safe, long enough to leave Daesung wanting more.

Long enough for Top to know Daesung wanted more.

Daesung looks away, at the bones in Top’s wrist as his fingers continue skimming around the bruise.

“Why didn’t you tell me to stop?”

Daesung’s insides plummet so far they’re burrowing to the other side of the world.

Was the thought – the _memory_ – of kissing him really that awful? So abhorrent that Top is _demanding_ to know why Daesung didn’t stop him?

It wasn’t like Top confused him for someone else; he’d said Daesung’s name almost as soon as he got into bed – _“Daesungieeee, you’re not supposed to be home until tomorrow”_ – before snuggling into him and kissing him, on his temple, his cheek, finally struggling to line their mouths up in the dark before moving to his neck and sucking at it with too much noise.

Top straightens and brings his other hand up so he’s gripping both of Daesung’s shoulders and says it again, eyes wide. _“Why didn’t you tell me to stop?”_

Daesung chokes down the fear and the inadequacy because if Top can’t deal with the fact that he drunkenly made out with Daesung, with a _man,_ or that Daesung’s been harboring a crush on him since forever, then that problem is Choi Seunghyun’s and no one else’s.

Daesung doesn’t need to lie about it anymore.

“Because I didn’t want you to.”

**  
***  
**

Not, “I thought I was dreaming.”

Not, “I didn’t think you would.”

Not even an, “I don’t know.”

_“Because I didn’t want you to.”_

At first, Top is just flooded with overwhelming relief, because it’s that second possibility – “I didn’t think you would” – that scares him the most, the thought that Daesung doesn’t trust him to stop any undesirable behavior he’s carrying out. 

What Daesung’s reply could possibly _mean_ doesn’t hit him until a moment later.

“You didn’t…” Top’s lips barely form the words before he trails off, going over Daesung’s response again in his mind, the conviction in his voice, the look on his face.

Daesung’s eyes soften and his mouth opens and Top _knows_ he’s going to apologize because he knows Daesung, knows how hard he works to keep himself in check, sorting out his grievances discreetly, reflecting privately, but Top wants Daesung to let his recklessness stand, for once, to just allow himself to _feel_ without having to justify _why_.

And there’s nothing he needs to be sorry for.

**  
***  
**

Daesung’s next breath is going to be an apology, but it ends up against Top’s mouth instead.

The kiss is soft. Cautious. Barely open-mouthed. No extra spit on his lips or liquor on his tongue.

He pulls back before Daesung can properly react.

“I’m sorry,” Top says, stealing Daesung’s apology. He presses their foreheads together and one of his hands starts rubbing along Daesung’s bicep. “For last night and the past month and every time I’ve done stupid shit like–”

Daesung doesn’t let Top get his full apology out, either.

**Author's Note:**

> Too shy to talk to me on here? Hit me up on [tumblr](http://gdragondance.tumblr.com).


End file.
